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TRUSTED STANDARDS MEAN

TRUSTED COMMUNICATIONS

By Tero Pesonen, Chair, TCCA Critical
Communications Broadband Group

Nowhere in the communications market are standards more for TETRA and Critical Communications Evolution (TC-TCCE)
crucial than for users in the mission and business-critical markets, can continue to finalise the TETRA element of the interface
where interoperability is essential to ensure uninterrupted specification.
service in operations where lives may be at stake.
This still needs to be implemented and deployed in order to enable
As 3GPP’s Market Representation Partner for critical governments, in particular, to keep critical communications
communications, TCCA through its Critical Communications services running while migrating from narrowband mission critical
Broadband Group (CCBG) has the ability to offer market advice LMR/PMR systems to 3GPP based broadband services. This
to 3GPP. It does this by bringing into 3GPP a consensus view of migration can take several years.
market requirements – services, features and functionality – that Beyond the infrastructure, device and service interoperability
fall within the 3GPP scope. By bringing this information to the certification is a key market enabler. Legislation in many countries
table, CCBG helps to ensure that the standards development already requires multivendor supply and interoperability from
process takes these critical user needs into account.
public procurement.
Since 2012, the work to incorporate mandatory functionality in
3GPP Releases to meet critical communications user needs has As an example, many ‘mission-critical’ products and services are
grown in depth and breadth. available today which claim to be 3GPP compliant, but one big issue
3GPP Release 13 introduced true critical communications to the facing all vendors and purchasers of these solutions is that there is
3GPP community. The SA6 Mission Critical Applications working no testing and certification process available to prove their 3GPP
group was established, and as a first outcome Mission Critical Push standards-compliance. The Global Certification Forum (GCF),
to Talk (MCPTT) capability was standardised. supported by TCCA, has formed the Mission Critical Agreement
Group (MCAG) to look at certification of LTE devices with
Over subsequent Releases a more comprehensive critical integrated MCX clients, and is working with the GSMA to define
communications architecture was defined with additional services TS.11 Field Trial test cases for MCX features. The MCAG has been
such as Mission Critical Data (MCData) and video (MCVideo) and established as a permanent GCF group to manage and develop MC
with the prioritization of work to allow mission critical systems certification going forward.
migration and interconnection, including efforts to ensure
smooth interconnect between LTE and LMR/PMR systems, For compliance testing, there are projects under way funded
including TETRA. by NIST including the MCS-TaaSting project, in which TCCA is a
partner. This Mission Critical Testing as a Service initiative aims
to fulfil the specific needs of the mission critical communications
SEAMLESS CONNECTIVITY community. The goal is to enable cost efficient regular and frequent
testing, re-testing, certification and re-certification of the myriad
and increasing combinations of devices, operating systems,
middleware and applications.
For Release 17, TCCA together with public safety agencies,
industry and other stakeholders highlighted the need to ensure These work items will allow our increasingly heterogeneous
seamless connectivity in terms of coverage, availability and industry to prove the 3GPP standards-compliance of their
resilience in a secure, safe and implementations. This will give end-users and operators the
taxpayer-friendly manner. confidence to buy certified and interoperable products and
services that will enhance the safety and security of us all.
This is translating into further standardisation of
device-to-device communication (5G_ProSe) via Sidelink in the V2X The ultimate goal is to create and build an interoperable
(Vehicle to everything) domain, in satellite connectivity (5GSAT_ multivendor market, pushing boundaries with new ways of working
ARCH) and multicast/broadcast capabilities over 5G (5GMBS). All and innovating with enablers for future solutions. The vast majority
of these are work-in-progress and will be a major benefit to society of progress in the standardisation of critical broadband is enabled
once deployed. by volunteers, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank
everyone who contributes to the activities of CCBG, TCCA and
However, when a standard Release comes out of 3GPP, the journey 3GPP. There is much work to do in order to ensure truly mission
to field operation is just beginning. In some cases, it forms the critical products and services, and I would
basis for further standardisation – an example is the interworking encourage everyone who cares about the
between Land Mobile Radio Systems (LMR) / Professional Mobile safety of their society to become involved.
Radio (PMR) with 3GPP Mission Critical Systems. With the
finalisation of 3GPP Release 16, the ETSI Technical Committee https://tcca.info/

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16 3GPP Highlights newsletter